This is the 14th Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". The first was produced in the Bandbox Theatre in 1916, twenty years after the play was first written and produced in Russia. The earliest production to take place in a Broadway venue that is still standing, was at the Shubert Theatre in March of 1938. There was also a production at the Belasco in 1964 and, most recently, at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 2008. The play is considered the first of his four great works, which he always considered a comedy. This particular production is a translation by David French in collaboration with Russian scholar Donna Orwin. Out of a cast of 12, there were four highly famous actors in the production each known primarily (but not exclusively) for their film and television work - Tyne Daly, Ethan Hawke, Laura Linney and Jon Voight. One of the difficulties with the play is that some believe it cannot be properly translate from the Russian. Tom Stoppard famously said ""You can’t have too many English Seagulls: at the intersection of all of them, the Russian one will be forever elusive."

As with the rest of Chekhov's full-length plays, The Seagull relies upon an ensemble cast of diverse, fully developed characters. In contrast to the melodrama of the mainstream theatre of the 19th century, lurid actions (such as Konstantin's suicide attempts) are not shown onstage. Characters tend to speak in ways that skirt around issues rather than addressing them directly; in other words, their lines are full of what is known in dramatic practice as subtext, or text that is not spoken aloud.

Cast

Portrait

Name & Bio

John Beal (The Cook) was a member of National Actors Theatre's premiere season company and appeared in all three productions. He has appeared in New York in many plays, including Our Town; The Voice of the Turtle; The Teahouse of the August Moon; To Be Young, Gifted, and Black; Lend an Ear; Long Day's Journey Into Night; and elsewhere, in A Man for All Seasons, Mr. Roberts, The Little Foxes, The Petrified Forest and Mass Appeal. His over 40 films include Another Language, My Six Convicts, Les Miserables, That Night and The Little Minister. He and his late wife, Helen Craig, worked together on radio and TV often, as well as on stage in Soliloquy, Russet Mantle and Antigone. John is also a director and portrait artist. Some of his many drawings on movie sets, in theatres, etc., during more than 60 years, are in his book Actor Drawing. He is most proud of his family, daughters Tita and Tandy, grandsons Paul and Justin, sons-in-law Eric and Jon.

Danny Burstein (Yakov) made his Broadway debut in last season's National Actors Theatre production of A Little Hotel on the Side. Off-Broadway includes Weird Romance at the WPA and The Rothschilds at Circle in the Square. National tours: Grease, Showboat. Regional: Macbeth and Once in a Lifetime at the La Jolla Playhouse, The Homecoming directed by William Ball and Our Country's Good directed by Andrei Serban. Graduate, High School of Performing Arts; has studied in the Soviet Union at the Moscow Art Theatre; holds an M.F.A. from U.C., San Diego. He and his wife, Laura, are expecting their first baby in March.

Tyne Daly (Madame Arkadina) won the 1990 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for her performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy and is an unprecedented four-time Emmy winner for "Cagney & Lacey." She made her professional debut at the Bucks County Playhouse and her NY debut in George S. Kaufman's The Butter and Egg Man. She studied at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy before moving to L.A. and appearing on "The Virginian." More than 200 shows followed, including the TV movies "Intimate Strangers" (Emmy nomination), "The Entertainer," "Larry," "The Women's Room," "The Man Who Could Talk with Kids," "The Mating Call," "Kids Like These," "Stuck with Each Other," "The Last to Go" and "Face of a Stranger." Films include John and Mary, The Enforcer, Telefon, The Aviator, Zoot Suit and Movers and Shakers. Between film and TV work, Ms. Daly, mother of three daughters, has returned to the stage in productions of Ashes, Three Sisters, Gethsemane Springs, The Rimers of Eldritch, The Birthday Party, Old Times, Vanities, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Moby Dick Rehearsal and Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she won the prestigious Drama-Logue. After a second run of Gypsy on Broadway, she starred in Queen of the Stardust Ballroom for the Long Beach CLO. She appeared on "The Trials of Rose O'Neill" and was nominated for an Emmy for her performance on "Wings." For the 1992 TV season, Ms. Daly guest-starred in "Columbo: A Bird in the Hand," played the Embodiment of Evil on "Swamp Thing" and starred in "Conan the Librarian" for PBS. Also: "No Room for Opal," and "Great Wide World Over There?" for the Ray Bradbury Theatre. Ms. Daly recently performed with The Boston Pops, the Augusta Symphony and the London Symphony Orchestra, with whom she recorded a concert version of Bernstein, Comden and Green's On the Town.

John Franklyn-Robbins (Sorin) played B'way in 1967 in Sir Tyrone Guthrie's Measure for Measure; and with the Royal Shakespeare Company's All's Well That Ends Well in 1983. Recently: Captain Shotover in Michael Langham's production of Heartbreak House; in London, England, at the Royal National Theatre, The Beau Stratagem; at the Old Vic, Coriolanus and Jonathan Miller's Bussy d'Ambois; in Rochester, NY, King Lear. At Canada's Stratford Festival: title role, Henry IV; Prince of Aragon, Much Ado About Nothing; Holofernes, Love's Labour's Lost; Apemantus, Michael Langham's production of Timon of Athens. Directing credits: Julius Caesar. Twelfth Night, King Lear. Film and TV credits: David Lander; The Woman in Black; BBC-TV's "Campion," "Prometheus Bound," "Sophia and Constance," "All Passion Spent," "War and Peace," "Jigsaw Man," "I Claudius."

Ethan Hawke (Konstantin) is making his Broadway debut with The Seagull. He was last seen in Luigi Pirandello's A Joke with the Malaparte Theatre Co., of which he was a co-founder. Prior to that he was in Constance Congdon's Casanova at the Public. Film: Dead Poet's Society, Dad, White Fang, A Midnight Clear, Waterland, the soon-to-be-released Alive and Rich in Love.

Zane Lasky (Medvedenko) recently appeared in L.A. as the Critic in John Ford Noonan's The Critic and his Wife. In NY, some of the roles he has created are Jamie in The Hot l Baltimore; Louie Lucas in All Over Town; Paul Johnson in Innocent Thoughts, Harmless Intentions; Larry in El Salvador; and Frank in the revival of Balm in Gilead. He has been a member of Circle Rep since its second season. For the last three years, he has been regularly seen on TV as Bob Phillips in "Knots Landing" and has guest-starred on a number of episodes of "Dallas." Also: seen regularly on "The Last Resort" and "Making the Grade." He appeared as the overzealous Mario Lanza on "The Tony Randall Show" and again with Mr. Randall on "Love, Sidney." He appeared last season in NAT's A Little Hotel on the Side.

Laura Linney (Nina) was last seen as Grete in Manhattan Theatre Club's Sight Unseen (Theatre World Award, Drama Desk nomination). Her other credits include Broadway's Six Degrees of Separation as Tess. Off and Off Off-Broadway credits include Sheila in Beggars in the House of Plenty, Felice in Forgetting Frankie and Nina in The Seagull: The Hamptons, 1990. Regional theatre: Ophelia in Fortinbras at La Jolla Playhouse. TV: "Beauty," "Class of '61" and "Blindspot," a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie with Joanne Woodward to be aired in 1993. Films: Lorenzo's Oil, Searching for Bobby Fischer and Dave, all to be released in 1993. A Juilliard graduate, she studied at the Moscow Art Theatre under Alexander Kaljagin.

Russell Lunday (Shamrayev) is making his New York debut in The Seagull. Most recently, he starred in The Sum of Us at the Pittsburgh Public. Prior to that, he appeared with Christine Lahti and Christopher Reeve in Summer and Smoke at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. He lives in Santa Monica and is a native of Billings, Montana. A graduate of Northwestern U., he currently studies acting in L.A. with Salome Jens.

Joan MacIntosh (Polina) was last seen in her acclaimed performance as the aphasic Anna in Susan Yankowitz's Night Sky. Broadway includes Orpheus Descending, Our Town and Curse of an Aching Heart. Off-Broadway includes Request Concert (Drama Desk Award), A Shayna Maidel, Endgame and, at NY Shakespeare Festival, A Bright Room Called Day, Cymbeline, Julius Caesar and Three Acts of Recognition. Resident work: Three Sisters, Hedda Gabler, The Balcony, Plenty, Sore Throats, Talley's Folly, Elizabeth, King Lear, The Goddess Project, Voices of Earth. Founding member: the Performance Group. She played in Mother Courage and Her Children, Oedipus, The Marilyn Project, The Tooth of the Crime, Commune (Obie Award) and Dionysus in '69 (Obie Award). Film: A Flash of Green, Fresh Horses, Awakenings. TV: "Another World," "One Life to Live," "As the World Turns." For PBS: "Fool's Fire," "Lincoln and Seward."

Marilyn Plunkett (Masha) appeared in all three of NAT's premiere season productions. This summer: Alison in The Old Boy, Kathleen in Park Your Car in Harvard Yard. On B'way: Sally in Me and My Girl for which she received a Tony, Dot/Marie in Sunday in the Park with George and Agnes in Agnes of God, which she repeated on the national tour and in Israel. She played Alice in Aristocrats at MTC. She has done much regional work at theatres such as Long Wharf, Huntington, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Charles Playhouse, GeVa, Westport Country Playhouse and was a founding member of Portland Stage. Roles: Joan in The Lark and St. Joan, Elsa in Road to Mecca, Sally in Talley's Folly, Elizabeth in The Crucible, Sonya in Uncle Vanya, Marianne in The Miser, many of Shakespeare's heroines and spirits. She has created the title role in a new musical adaptation of Jane Eyre. TV: "L.A. Law," "Star Trek," "Matlock," "The Antagonists," several TV movies. She performed at Carnegie Hall for a televised 100th birthday celebration for Irving Berlin.

Tony Roberts (Dr. Doran) recently starred in the world premiere of A.J. Guerney's The Fourth Wall. His Broadway credits include Jerome Robbins' Broadway: Arsenic and Old Lace; They're Playing Our Song; Murder at the Howard Johnson's; Absurd Person Singular; Sugar; Promises, Promises; Play It Again, Sam (Tony Award nomination); How Now, Dow Jones (Tony Award nominatoin); Don't Drink the Water; Barefoot in the Park; The Last Analysis; Take Her, She's Mine; Never Too Late; Something About a Soldier. In London's West End, he starred in Promises, Promises winning the London Critics Poll Award. Off-Broadway work includes The Cradle Will Rock and The Good Parts. Regional work: The Seagull, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Serenading Louie. TV movies: "The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case," "The Girls in the Office," "A Different Affair," "If Things Were Different," "A Question of Honor," "Seize the Day," "The Messiah on Mott Street." Film: Annie Hall; Serpico; Play It Again, Sam; Key Exchange; Just Tell Me What You Want; Switch; Popcorn; 18 Again; Amityville Horror III; Hannah and Her Sisters; Radio Days; A Midsummer Nights Sex Comedy; Stardust Memories; others. As director: Charles Grodin's One of the All Time Greats at NY's Vineyard Theatre.

Jon Voight (Trigorin) is internationally known for his work in film. He received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Midnight Cowboy and Runaway Train, and won the Academy Award for his role in Coming Home opposite Jane Fonda. But NY theatregoers may remember Jon for his performance as Rodolfo in Ulu Grossbard's celebrated 1965 production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, which also starred Robert Duvall, Richard Castellano and Suan Anspach, and boasted a little-known assistant to the director named Dustin Hoffman. Jon started his career on Broadway, replacing Brian Davis in the long-running Sound of Music and was last seen here in Frank Gilroy's That Summer, That Fall. Coincidentally, his leading lady for that play was Tyne Daly. Yonkers born, he now resides in L.A. He has two children: Angelina Jolie, 17 and James Haven, 19. Both have already made their marks in the film community — Angelina as an actress and James as a writer.